


repair work (or zombie maintenance for beginners)

by TheBlackestFrost



Series: Helping Hands [2]
Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Body Horror, F/M, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 05:43:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21315136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlackestFrost/pseuds/TheBlackestFrost
Summary: For now, however, he grimaces.There’s a tear from the middle of her back to under her shoulder blade, skin having pulled away to reveal muscle and the smallest hint of bone.“The hell happened here?”A moment on the road where Laura needs fixing.Follows hardy and hale (or, how to heal a leprechaun) but can be read as a stand alone.
Relationships: Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Series: Helping Hands [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1536634
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	repair work (or zombie maintenance for beginners)

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a lovely prompt from blue_gowns (thank you).

He’s convinced that every motel in the country is actually the same motel, same bible, same smell, same questionably dark décor to hide the accumulated filth of however many of the same people have come through to sleep and fuck in it.

Still, at least he can shower.

It’s short, and the shower head is too low, but at least he can get to some measure of clean.

He dries, pulls on his trousers and lights a cigarette before washing his shirt and undershirt in the sink. Wringing it dry he hangs it over the shower rail and grabs the cheap plastic hairdryer, turning it on and blasting the material.

The whirring air leaves his brain to wander.

It’s been two days since his little brush with illness and he’s still not done being pissed about the whole thing. It’s not enough that his fuckin’ coin is still animating a corpse (a walking reminder of just how far from his own honour he’s strayed), that he’s being nagged by ravens (fuckin' shites), that he spends his day in a car scented with ash and decay (and a smart mouth looking for any opportunity to needle him).

_Cold water and icy hands become the centre of his world._

_Slim hips settle over his stomach as icy patterns cool his fever._

_Those milky fucking eyes studying his face as he drifts off to sleep._

Now he’s got those memories, those stupid fuckin’ memories, and he’s got no idea how to carve them out (or whether they’ll be taken from him….he doesn’t quite know which is worse).

He gives up, heading out to the bed and stopping dead in his tracks.

“You can’t fuckin’ knock?”

She tilts her head as if thinking about it, and she looks like such a brat he’d be tempted to throw something at her if he didn’t know she could throw _him_ back.

“You can’t hear me knocking over that dryer?”

He rolls his eyes, lights his cigarette anand takes a drag, making note of the way she is holding his gaze (very, very deliberately not looking down at his chest) and grins.

“No shame in it, love, have a peek.”

She rolls her eyes (a disturbing sight the more that film builds up) but he can see her jaw clench. His eyes narrow.

“What’s wrong?”

She’s got that expression she wears when she needs something and hates needing something and he wonders when exactly she decided that needing things was the worst thing. Then again, he needs a seat at the table to pay his battle debt, and he’s hated almost every second of trying to get that seat.

“I can’t reach.” Her voice is small, annoyed and plaintive.

“The fuck are you talkin’ about?”

She groans and turns around, lifting the corners of her shirt as she goes, until it’s pulled right off her head and he’s staring at her bare back. Later, much later, he’ll go back to the sight of pale (grey, clammy, disgusting…but not) skin, the ridges of her spine and shift of her shoulder blades, the narrowness of her waist and how delicate she looks (like a brightly coloured snake, he thinks, all the more to trick you with my dear).

For now, however, he grimaces.

There’s a tear from the middle of her back to under her shoulder blade, skin having pulled away to reveal muscle and the smallest hint of bone.

“The hell happened here?”

Her voice is less small and more annoyed now, though for once not at him. “Got knocked back by some old guy in a rush, hit a coat rack and…ta da.”

It’s not as if she’s at risk of infection, but the tear won’t exactly heal, and will only tear further if she moves too much (punching, for example, could see her accidentally flay her own arm).

He’s tempted for a moment to play dumb, ask what the fuck she expected him to do about it, force her to articulate what she needs (wants) for once and enjoy how she’ll squirm. Instead he tells her to sit on the bed.

He rummages around in a drawer and finds it, one of the cheap sewing kits that pepper motels, barely a needle and thread but good enough for their needs, and turns.

She’s perched on the edge with her back to him, hunched and small, and he realises she’s staring into the mirror in front of her with wide, distant eyes.

He wonders what she’s looking for, or trying not to see.

Carefully, like he’s approaching something slightly wild (a not inaccurate description, he supposes), he moves in front of her and kneels down. With her sitting and him on his knees he’s at head height, and she breaks her reverie to look at him.

“How much can you feel?”

“Why?”

He grits his teeth, “because I’m about to stick a needle in you and I don’t need you whinin’ or breakin’ my finger for it.”

She shrugs, “everything, nothing. There’s touch, I can feel temperatures and stuff. But nothing much else.”

He moves to stand and her hand shoots out to his shoulder, pinning him in place on his knees in front of her, and for a second he thinks there might be worse ways to die if this is how she chooses to end him. Her eyes lock onto him and she leans forward.

“Don’t mess me up.”

He scoffs at that, glancing pointedly down at her autopsy scars, the slightly separating threads holding her arm in place, the point in her chest where he’d shoved the coin back into her.

“Please, as if I could make it worse.”

She releases him with a tight smile but he sees the flash of hurt.

He lowers himself behind her on the bed, pushes her slightly forward by the back of her neck (earning him a glare in the mirror) and gets to work.

He pulls her hair, still thick but drier now, less bouncing curl and more stiff twist, over one shoulder and out of his way.

She watches him.

The tear is ragged and her skin is papery and dry, so he takes his time. He starts at one end, pulling careful stitch after careful stitch into place, shifting them so the line isn’t straight but is capturing the skin well. He stops occasionally to adjust his stitching.

She watches him.

The lamp provides just enough light that her skin looks more yellow than grey. The smell isn’t great, worse with the wound open, and he wrinkles his nose.

She stops watching him.

He notices.

“Nothin’ I ain’t seen or smelled before, love.”

With the stitching complete he checks the rest of her, adding a stitch wherever a small tear threatens to turn into something larger, and rather than complaining she lets him. When he presses a thumb into her lower back to push skin together he feels her shift, pushing into the movement, and he watches the relief cross over her face.

He runs his hands over her back, noting how much of her he can cover, kneading carefully at muscles that have locked tightly until they relax. The stitches hold firm, all the better as some of the tension leaves her, and he tells himself it's fine to continue (because if she holds long enough maybe he can get his coin back without plucking it from her ribcage). He pointedly avoids looking at her in the mirror, ignores the exhale he knows is more habit than necessity, ignores the way she shifts, slightly, to angle his hands just where she needs them without saying anything.

He follows the line of her spine, big thumb trailing over one ridge at a time, running from top to bottom and back again slowly before resting his hand over her shoulder.

Their eyes meet in the mirror.

_At another time, in another place, he’d run his hands down her arms and around her waist, cupping the narrow curves before spreading his fingers up her ribcage._

_He’d pull her into his lap and explore her chest, watch her expression and he rolled and plucked and pinched at her. _

_He’d feel her grind into him, would wrap one hand around her neck to pin her in place while he pushed their pants down, watching her face as he pushed up into her inch by dreadful inch. _

_He’d keep the grip on her neck, enjoying the sight of his massive hand over her delicate throat, using the other to grasp her hips, graze her clit. _

_He’d watch her adjust to the size of him, start her own shifting movements, watch her mouth drop and hear mewls and whimpers and then cries as she picked up her pace._

_He’d force two fingers into her mouth and she’d suck, hungrily, and he’d use the remaining moisture to return to his assault on her clit._

_He’d explore her neck with his lips and teeth, tasting her and kissing her and watching the way her eyes closed as she got closer to her edge. _

_He’d let go of her neck and tangle his fingers in her hair, pulling her head back far enough that he could claim her mouth, swallow her moans as her movements became frantic._

_He’d watch her come apart and follow her over the edge, leaving bruises on her hips and ribs._

_As they came down he’d lick sweat from her skin and she’d turn in his lap and kiss him like she believed and all would be right with the world._

It’s not another time, or place.

He moves his hand from her shoulder.

She reaches up a hand to touch the top of the stitching, trailing it back over where her arm is sewn to her shoulder, down her autopsy lines.

“All sewn up, like a fucking dolly.”

His tone is light. “Scariest fuckin’ dolly I’ve ever seen.”

She laughs at that, a bright and surprised noise, and he’s not sure he’s ever liked a sound quite that much.

She looks thoughtful for a moment. In the lamplight she is bright and pale, the shadows thrown over him making him look like a monster rising behind her in the night.

She seems to make some kind of decision and closes her eyes, shifting backwards until her ass is pressed against his crotch, her spine sinking against his stomach, leaning back and back until her head rests against his chest. Her shirt has long since fallen to the floor and for a moment he just stares at her exposed throat, narrow shoulders, her high breasts.

When she speaks, it’s that same quiet voice. “Hold me.”

Carefully, slowly, he wraps his arms around her stomach, ignoring the brush of her nipple against his skin, watching how much of her torso is swamped by his larger figure. She rests her thin arms on his, lightly, fingers just gripping at his forearms.

In five minutes she’ll stand up, drag her shirt back on, and leave without a word. They’ll get comfortably back to what they do best, searching the country for her shit for brains husband and the god calling for a war and trying to do so on a tight timeline of decay.

But for five minutes he holds her, and she lets him, and all is right in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, let me know what you think!


End file.
